


without our head, without our heart

by voidfoxstarlight



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, hurt/not much comfort, post-Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25657012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidfoxstarlight/pseuds/voidfoxstarlight
Summary: Metal vocal chords have a strange effect on sound, and Brian’s voice quivers oddly when he finds it again. “Nastya’s not coming back?”
Relationships: Nastya Rasputina & The Mechanisms, The Mechanisms Ensemble & The Mechanisms Ensemble
Comments: 6
Kudos: 84





	without our head, without our heart

**Author's Note:**

> Title adjusted from "Worms" by AlicebanD.

Brian doesn’t pay any attention to the footsteps coming down the hall or the beep and gentle woosh of a door closing. There are a full five seconds of silence before a half-distraught, half-angry shout rings out.

“ _Damn it!_ ”

Brian’s head snaps up. “Jonny?”

There's no response. Further screaming and swearing would have been less worrying. 

“Jonny?” he says again, putting his book on his bedside table. He opens his door and pokes his head out into the corridor. Jonny’s door is firmly closed.

Brian approaches with vague trepidation and knocks.

“What.” Jonny’s voice is flat.

“Are you… what happened?”

“Nothing.”

Completely devoid of inflection. He only gets like this when he’s _really_ upset. Brian lays his hand on the scanner to open the door. It beeps, but only raises a few inches off the ground before a gun goes off inside the room. The door freezes in place; Jonny must have shot the scanner on his side.

Even if he’d sooner kill one of them than admit it (not a high bar, granted, but it stands), Jonny hates being alone when he’s upset. Brian can’t completely hide the mix of surprise and fear in his voice when he says, “Jonny, _please_ tell me what’s going on.”

A few seconds of silence. Then: “Nastya left.”

Ah. Jonny and Nastya’s combined tempers are legendary, especially when pitted against one another. “Did you have have an argument?”

“No, she just _left_.” His voice cracks on the last word, and he takes an audible gasping breath before continuing. “She’s not coming back. She said she’s _not coming back_.”

Metal vocal chords have a strange effect on sound, and Brian’s voice quivers oddly when he finds it again. “Nastya’s not coming back?”

Jonny doesn’t reply, which is answer enough on its own. Brian leans heavily against the wall. None of them have ever… _left_ before. Not for good. Not forever.

He pushes away from the wall and spins on his heel to make his way to the bridge. 

“Aurora? Where is Nastya?” 

Aurora is silent. Brian tries to access the video feed by the airlock from the past half hour, but Aurora won’t let him get past typing the passcode. Finally, he sits cross-legged in the middle of the bridge with his hat in his lap and his face in his hands. He should be consoling Aurora, he thinks, but he can’t bring himself to move or speak.

After a good fifteen minutes or so, he drags himself off the floor and sends a private message to each of the other Mechanisms. _Nastya left and she’s not coming back. Meet outside Jonny’s room please._

Brian is the first to make it, but Raphaella and the Toy Soldier show up soon after. The rest of them trickle in slowly, not one of them saying a word. Soon enough, seven of them are milling around outside of Jonny’s room.

Through the crack between the door and the floor, Brian can tell Jonny’s laying flat on his back.

“Do you want to get out of there?” Brian asks.

“Yeah.”

Together, Brian and Marius pry the door up enough for Jonny to crawl out.

Everyone settles in. There’s a seriousness in the air, a fragility he’s never felt among them before. Brian has lived more lifetimes than most people are capable of processing. He’s seen planets die and be reborn, watched star systems fade from existence, but his crew members have been a constant through all of it. The idea that one of them might leave for good, that he might never see them again, feels unnatural in a way even their mechanisms don’t.

But the rest of them are here, even Ivy and Tim, who prefer to process upsetting things on their own. They’re all letting the others know that they’re not going anywhere. They're here. They’re staying. They’re together.

Jonny leans against Tim, who is pressed shoulder to shoulder with Brian, whose knee brushes against Ashes, who has an arm around the Toy Soldier, whose fingers are entwined with Ivy’s, whose head is on Raphaella’s shoulder, who has Marius’s head resting in her lap. All of them lean on the cool metal walls of the ship, and the Aurora hums mournfully and cradles them close.


End file.
